Quotable Country – 07/01/13 Edition

July 1, 2013 by C.M. Wilcox

Click the bullet after each quote to visit the source.

In a way some of our 3 Doors Down stuff isn’t a real far shot from country. I don’t really want to reach too far away from this kind of stuff I already do. Country and rock are about as close as they’ve ever been. So I just have to write and see what we come up with. ●– – Brad Arnold of 3 Doors Down on his impending solo country album. God help us.

I play mostly in the mosh pits and stuff, the alternative rock clubs and stuff like that, (and) I believe in listening to the people, and everywhere I play I’m being told, ‘We don’t listen to the radio anymore.’ But they’re hungry for more of my stuff; so if they’re hungry for my stuff, they’re bound to be hungry for Merle Haggard and the guys that play traditional country music and the young ones that are comin’ on, too.
You see the kids who bring their mothers and dads to the shows and their grandparents. The kids are dancin’ and havin’ fun, and you look over at the grandparents and you see a tear comin’ down a cheek for a 40-year-old song they haven’t heard in forever, and it’s bringin’ back a lot of memories. And I think the kids are turned on by our music because it’s pure and it comes from the heart. Used to, that’s where all country music was. ●– – The late Don Walser in 1996, in a Chet Flippo piece for Billboard.

I’m not just fighting for me and Redneck Records. I’m fighting for women in these roles. A woman can be a president of a record company. A woman can produce a record. A woman can engineer a record. A woman can put the damn thing together, and a woman can sell it. This year is about proving that, even if we don’t break charts. ●– – Gretchen Wilson.

Perhaps mindful of those precedents, Keith decided to share [Show Dog] staff with another nascent label, Big Machine, run by an up-and-comer named Scott Borchetta. The singer bought a building in Nashville to house both labels. And rather than just operate like a co-op, Keith paid $400,000 for a stake in Big Machine that FORBES estimates remains around 10%.
It was one of the great investments in recent music history. Borchetta went on to sign Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and, most notably, Taylor Swift. Now Keith gets paid whenever Swift does. “Toby’s a really smart businessman,” says Borchetta, who knows because “I send him checks.” How big are the checks that Swift generates for him? “I know there’s an extra comma,” smiles Keith, “if you added up all the money I’ve ever made.” ●– – Forbes Magazine in an article on the business savvy of Toby Keith, “Country Music’s $500 Million Man.”

The one thing we really had to adjust for is that the way the sound echoes in the room, you hit the bass drum once and that bass drum will last 12 seconds in that room, it will bounce around and around. So you need to tweak how you’re playing and make sure you’re not playing too many notes, [laughs] because it can get all mushed together. ●– – Eli Young Band’s Chris Thompson on touring football stadiums with Kenny Chesney.

I think he sees something special in that song and understands it. He’s a country music fan and, more than that, he just loves music and loves playing. I’m really glad he cut the track. It’s been good for him and good for us, but I’m just waiting for the time when people come up to me and say, ‘I love when you guys played that Darius Rucker cover.’ ●– – Old Crow Medicine Show’s Critter Fuqua on the Darius Rucker version of “Wagon Wheel.”

Someone scolded me on Facebook a few days ago, saying that my new songs ‘Kiss You There’ and ‘Country This‘ weren’t “country enough.” My new CD is full of countrier than dirt songs. Radio doesn’t play “countrier than dirt” songs. It’s a radio song. You have to get songs on the radio, or you don’t get heard. If you don’t get heard, you don’t get to go out and play all of the other stuff. That said, there’s not a song that I put on a record that I don’t like. Here I sit tryin’ to make everybody happy. ●– – Ronnie Dunn’s once-promising solo career is winding itself right back around to where he got stuck (and stagnant) with Brooks & Dunn.

Well, the likable part is easy. Just be nice. Be a nice person and put on a great show and you can work a long time. That’s really how we’ve done it. There’s no secret to it, but I see artists that either get full of themselves or don’t work hard enough from the stage to entertain people. When your hits go away, you’ll go away too with that attitude. ●– – Neal McCoy on staying power.

A lot of people are doing the same thing. The thing that’s in now is the real redneck, hunting, fishing, four-wheeling, real country attitude and I don’t know that everybody who’s singing it is near as country as they want to sound, but that’s OK. They’re having hits with it. A lot of people are doing the same thing and it’s working. I’m hoping that it’ll come back around to maybe a little older style of country. It’s cyclical, so it will come around again, but right now it’s working for the younger audience and it’s working for country music. The Jason Aldeans and the Eric Churches and all those people are having huge success and good for ’em. I’m really not bitter. I’m just jealous. I wish I could have some of it (laughs). ●– – Neal McCoy on modern country music.

It’s an unbelievable city filled with unbelievable people and unbelievable artists. You know you could be in a restaurant and somebody will be serving you a beer one second and then up singing an amazing song that they wrote with this incredible voice. The talent is just endless. ●– – Hayden Panettiere on Nashville.

I record when I want to and I tour when I want to. I don’t really plan too much ahead. I keep the iPad close by if I have an idea for a song, and when I get to it, I will write it. I know that I am going fishing this week and that’s about all I plan ahead. ●– – Hank Jr.

I missed the country sounds on the radio. I missed the Deana Carters and the old Faith Hill songs that are more richly country and not so highly pop. So I really wanted that to be on my first album. ●– – Jana Kramer on taking it back to the old school, where ‘old school’ equals 1997.

CMT’s new series Hillbillies for Hire will premiere July 14 at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show depicts the adventures of Jeremiah and his best friend, Big Ox, as they use their backwoods ingenuity to concoct the most outrageous pranks imaginable. ●– – Oh for crap’s sake. How can CMT even take CMT seriously these days?

Joanna Smith gets some help from Patty Loveless on “Borrowed Wedding Dress.”

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Comments

Ronnie Dunn is recording crap because he believes he needs radio play in order to go out and sing the good songs. Meanwhile, Neal McCoy, whom I haven’t heard on the radio since, oh, probably 2002 at the latest, is still out there playing his songs (I have never been a fan of his, so I’m not going to call ’em good, but I’ll go ahead and make the assumption that they’re what he wants to sing) and presumably making enough money at it to not need a day job. Sounds like Mr. Dunn needs to pay a little more attention to what’s going on around him.

It’s a shame a talent like Joanna wasn’t able to catch on, I know her last single with Sony “Girls Are Crazy” wasn’t all that great, but after 2 decent singles and 1 amazing one they had to try something….Joanna is one of the most talented of the new female crop so I hope she gets picked up somewhere else.

I imagine Jana Kramer is a bit too young to remember when the “old school” country was current. No doubt, she’s just referring to the music she remembers hearing as a teenager growing up in the nineties. There were a lot more “country sounds” on the radio then than there are now, so I think it’s pretty understandable that a person of that generation would feel nostalgic for that time, and I don’t think that necessarily suggests a lack of knowledge or appreciation of classic country music.

She’s 29, so you’re probably right. Deana Carter sounds like Loretta Lynn in comparison to Carrie Underwood anyway. Not everyone who liked country music back in the ’90s had parents who were into the genre themselves (it really underwent a boom in popularity back then), so while she was certainly listening to her parents’ music when she was little, the chances of that being Patsy Cline & Loretta Lynn vs. Stevie Nicks & Carly Simon aren’t too great.

I think you’re right, Ben. That wasn’t really intended as a judgment, as if Kramer ‘should have’ been influenced more by music that wasn’t even popular while she was growing up. It just always strikes me as funny when ‘back to country’ movements involve eras I vividly recall from within my own lifetime, since I still like to imagine that I’m fairly young.

Really, I’m glad to hear of anyone influenced by Deana Carter. I still listen to her first album regularly.